Former NFL star Dante Hall enjoys football practice as an assistant coach with St. Anthony in Long Beach August 19, 2013. (Thomas R. Cordova/Staff Photographer)

Dante Hall is returning. The great ones always do. And in football, nobody has mastered the art of the return quite like Hall. After five years away from the sport following his retirement from the NFL in 2008, Hall is returning to the game he loves. Only this time around, he’s trading in his helmet and No. 82 jersey for a visor and a polo shirt, coaching running backs at St. Anthony High School.

For the first year following his retirement, Hall returned to his hometown of Houston to take time to himself and relax.

“The first year I just took off,” says Hall on how he spent his retirement. “A lot of travelling, golf, and just enjoying life. In 2010, I started doing a bunch of things I could never do while playing ball. I started a couple of businesses, got my real estate license, personal training, and educating myself; basically doing things that excited me.”

Eventually, Hall realized that something was missing from all of those activities. “What I found in doing all of that,” says Hall. “I only have one true passion. That’s why I was so successful. My one true passion is for the game of football.”

Hall also discovered that he didn’t want to live in his hometown anymore and needed a change of scenery. So he opted for the reverse Dwight Howard and moved from Houston to Los Angeles.

It was the perfect fit for Hall, who knew that he would have a support system in Southern California. Burnis Simon, Hall’s high school coach at Nimitz High School in Houston and a man Hall refers to as his “surrogate father,” was already living here in LA, and it turned out to be the right destination for Hall as well.

“My fiancée and I just fell in love and were enamored with the California lifestyle,” says Hall, who was nicknamed the “X-Factor” and the “Human Joystick” during his playing days.

Once he got settled in his new city, he decided to reach out and explore a career in coaching. As fate would have it, a simple phone call to the CIF office would connect Hall with a former teammate and, ultimately, a tiny private school in the heart of Long Beach.

“I called the CIF office to see what I had to do to coach, because the passion was just burning in me and I needed to channel it and find an outlet,” he remembers.

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The person that answered the phone with CIF just so happened to be the cousin of Jimmie Irby, St. Anthony’s defensive coordinator and a former teammate of Hall’s at Texas A&M. Once word got to Irby about the phone call, he immediately began recruiting his former teammate to come coach with him.

“From January until about March or April, Jimmy was recruiting me, saying I should come out,” Hall says. “So I came for a few days and it just felt right. For my first time coaching, I wanted to be around someone I knew.”

Once Hall got around the team, he began to feel more and more comfortable. In fact, he began to see parallels between his own life and the program he was about to coach.

“It’s a long ride for me (from LA to Long Beach), but everything felt right here,” says Hall. “It’s kind of like me, I’m starting up my coaching career, they’re starting a new culture and instilling a program here at St. Anthony — that resonated with me, which is why I’m here.”

Saints head coach Mario Morales, who is in his second season with St. Anthony, has been thrilled to have Hall on his staff this season.

“He brings enthusiasm with the kids,” says Morales. “They know who he is and what he’s done. But the biggest thing he’s brought is his humility. He’s such a humble guy.”

Hall is working closely with the Saints’ running backs — the position he played while at A&M — meaning senior starter Corey Redeaux has had the opportunity to learn a lot from Hall. Needless to say, he was excited when he heard who his position coach would be.

“I was thrilled,” says Redeaux, who moved from wide receiver to running back for his senior season. “I was so excited to have a professional player come out and coach me.”

During his career, Hall was more than your average pro football player. He appeared in two consecutive Pro Bowls and was an All-Pro selection in 2002-03 as a kick returner for the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2010, he was named to the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 2000’s, and he has been credited for revolutionizing the return game and paving the way for wide receivers/return specialists like Devin Hester, Josh Cribbs and Long Beach’s own DeSean Jackson.

Because this is his first job in football since playing in the NFL — not to mention his first time coaching — Hall has had to make some adjustments. There is, understandably, a big difference between playing with the best players in the world and coaching Division XIII high school football.

“The challenging thing is that these are kids. You have to go back to the fundamental state of football,” Hall says when asked for the toughest part about coaching. “So for me, (the biggest challenge) is suppressing wanting these kids to be perfect. Because in the NFL it’s a business, and everything has to be done a certain way and done to perfection. Here, you’re teaching kids, so you want them to enjoy the game.”

Hall is also coaching on special teams, working with—you guessed it — the returners. And it should come as no surprise that Hall’s return to football has worked out so well — that’s what he does. But this time, instead of an NFL end zone, his return brought him to Long Beach.